-The Hindu The Pandora Papers have only highlighted the need for concerted steps to alter the global financial architecture The Pandora Papers, published on October 3, once again expose the illegal activities of the rich and the mighty across the world. The Pandora Papers investigation is “the world’s largest-ever journalistic collaboration, involving more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries”. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has researched...

-Hindustan Times The Union environment ministry has come out with a consultation paper on amending the Forest Conservation Act 1980 to bring significant changes to forest governance in India including facilitating private plantations for harvesting and exploration or extraction of oil and natural gas deep beneath forest land by drilling holes from outside the forest areas. Here are the highlights of the environment ministry’s proposal: Forests on private land Until December 1996, provisions of...

The newly released Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round) establishes the fact that the farm households are more and more relying on wage incomes instead of 'net incomes from crop cultivation' for their livelihoods. In Marxian lexicon, proletarisation (a term that we can loosely use for depeasantisation) refers to the process in which the farmers/ tillers are...

-The Tribune The government will also have to take back the three farm laws, says Surjewala The Congress on Saturday hailed as “farmers’ victory” the Centre’s order to commence paddy procurement in Punjab and Haryana from October 3 instead of October 11. The Centre’s earlier decision to postpone procurement till October 11 due to recent heavy rains sparked protests by farmers in the two states.   Responding to the development, Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep...

-The Hindu Punjab CM demands PM’s intervention to begin immediate procurement The Punjab government and a number of farm unions from Punjab and Haryana have raised objections to the Centre’s decision to postpone procurement of paddy in both States until October 11, citing higher moisture content due to rainfall. The unions have called on farmers to protest the move outside the homes of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP)...